Firsts
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "The first time Spirit kisses Stein, the meister doesn't realize what's happening until it's over." Spirit takes initiative. Stein takes somewhat longer.
1. First Kiss

The first time Spirit kisses Stein, the meister doesn't realize what's happening until it's over.

They are at home, framed in their most common orientation: Spirit stretched out along the length of the couch, half-focused on the book in his hand, feet angled awkwardly sideways to make room for Stein sitting more normally at the other end. The meister is investigating a textbook too heavy for his lap, twisted far sideways so he can lean over the table at his right that is supporting the weight. He /could/ get up, move to the dining table or lock himself in his room, but even the painful press of Spirit's knee against his hip doesn't entirely counteract the invasive pleasure of the physical contact, and besides he's used to it by now (he tells himself). There's no point in moving when the payoff would be so minimal.

Stein /is/ truly reading, lost in the words on the page in front of him, so it takes him a long time before he realizes that Spirit isn't and hasn't been for some time. When he glances away from the page at his partner, the older boy is watching him with an expression Stein doesn't fully identify, and his grip on the book in his fingers is visibly loosening, putting the book in danger of being dropped.

Stein is still half-thinking about bone and tendons and ligaments, but part of his mind has been tuning itself to Spirit's less easily interpreted body language, and that part is pulling apart the weapon's expression in an attempt to categorize the component parts. He is biting his lower lip between his teeth, that is worry, and there is the quirk of a smile at the edge of his mouth, that's amusement, or mischief, more precisely; there is usually something to worry about when Spirit looks that way. His forehead echoes the concern his teeth are exhibiting, and his shoulders are angled away in the same hesitance, but his arms are tense with /something/ that Stein can't quite get a read on - determination? conviction? - even when the book completes its stalled tumble to the floor.

"Spirit?" Stein offers without further details. Usually this is enough to push the weapon over into some sort of minimal confession - Spirit seems to need permission to speak, or perhaps reassurance that Stein is listening, before whatever fragile dam he has erected on his emotions shatters in the weight of the flood. This time Spirit lurches forward so he is almost sitting up, draws back to lean on his elbows as that panic flares stronger. With the lamplight behind the meister's head Stein can see the illumination catch Spirit's eyes, turn them infinitely blue with reflected light. Spirit's eyes have always been uselessly complex for the meister - he can never get any helpful data from them because there are always dozens of emotions vying for expression in them, and every time he tries to extract information he ends up getting distracted by the /color/, how can anyone's eyes be so /clear/, it defies rationality, and then they both look away rather more flushed and hot that Stein is at all comfortable being.

As he is now, he realizes at a great distance. Whatever details were safely spinning in the back of his head have quietly exited, leaving his mind entirely enthralled with deconstructing Spirit's expression, and now he's lost in that /blue/ again.

Spirit's fingers close on Stein's glasses before the meister sees them coming; what he gets in cleared vision he pays for in lack of peripheral awareness. Then his glasses are gone, the distant edges of the world gone blurry with the lack of focus. Spirit is still close enough for clarity, though, and Stein is starting to feel what he would describe as 'nervous' if he had ever felt such instead of watching it play across Spirit's face.

He wants to speak but he doesn't know what to say, and Spirit's expression is really starting to unnerve him. The weapon's eyes are going dark, Stein realizes, the dark pupils encroaching on the blue and there is a singular emotion there, perfectly clear for once, but Stein's never seen it before and doesn't know what it means. Spirit breaks eye contact but only to look down and he is looking at Stein's /mouth/, that makes no sense at all, and then the weapon is moving forward faster than Stein can react and his lips are against Stein's, and Spirit is /kissing/ him, that makes /less/ than no sense. There is no time to react, no time to process, really lips are just like any other skin but /so soft/, there's almost no resistance there at all, and then Spirit's mouth is gone and he is fitting Stein's glasses back on before the meister has caught back up to events.

The smile is there for sure now, pulling at the edges of Spirit's mouth and his lips have never looked so soft before, Stein's suddenly not sure that he's ever really /looked/ at Spirit's mouth before, and this close Spirit must know what he's doing and he pulls his gaze up to Spirit's eyes with a totally foreign self-consciousness that feels strange in his head but meshes perfectly with the blush that is taking over his face. That is fear in the weapon's eyes now, fright at the surface but mostly pleasure underneath, and when did his eyes become so easy to read? The nervous shine is fading, amusement is creeping in to take its place, and Stein realizes that this is in response to /him/, that his face is broadcasting emotions he does not intend and he looks away but somehow that makes the blush /worse/.

To his infinite relief Spirit doesn't laugh. He doesn't make any sound at all, actually, just leans back as he was and picks his book back up. When Stein manages to look back over, the weapon is doing an excellent imitation of someone really deeply immersed in whatever he is reading in spite of the semi-random smiles that he keeps biting back.

The weapon does blow his cover by sliding his feet into Stein's lap as soon as the meister turns back to his book, but Stein doesn't have it in him to argue or the nerve to turn around to see what expression Spirit is making, so he just tries to drop back into his own mental focus on the subject before him.

It proves far more difficult than he expects.


	2. Second Kiss

The first time Stein kisses Spirit, the weapon has given up on reciprocation.

Spirit's initial approach was barely planned. He had been thinking about kissing Stein for approximately two minutes when he did so; the idea had come into his mind out of nowhere, nested in his neurons and then proven unshakeable. It seemed like the thing to do was to act on the impulse immediately, before nerves and self-doubt had time to make an effective sally, so he did. He had learned more about Stein's feelings in the immediate aftermath than the meister had shown him in three years, probably more than Stein himself managed to pull from the situation. The flush of self-consciousness, the fleeting smile, the slow blink of pleasure - when Stein looked away and his face fell back into semi-controlled blankness, Spirit knew that he had the upper hand for perhaps the first time in all their interactions.

Stein has been watching him even more closely than usual since then, lurking in Spirit's periphery whenever he turns around, staring at the weapon the moment Spirit appears to be looking elsewhere, and jerking his gaze away as soon as Spirit turns back towards his partner. If Stein were less off-balance Spirit would be horribly, cripplingly nervous and self-conscious, but as it is the meister is broadcasting his stress so strongly that Spirit relaxes in counterpoint, like there's only so much panic between them and the meister had made reservations on all of it.

With Stein visibly tensing with each day that goes by, Spirit expects him to break after just a handful of days, for his self-control to shatter and crumble into /something/ to give Spirit the satisfaction of confrontation. The meister lasts for over a week, so long that Spirit starts to wonder if Stein will just maintain his hyper-sensitive jumpiness for the long term, if the weapon shouldn't take matters into his own hands.

Spirit knows something has changed when he comes home from class to find Stein unusually calm. The meister looks up when he comes in and all the panicked uncertainty of the preceding days is gone. He looks just like he has for their previous years of partnership - distant, aloof, slightly oblivious to his surroundings, as if he is buffered from reality by an extra layer than other people.

The familiarity of Stein's expression sinks into Spirit's awareness like inexplicable depression. He feels like this long-awaited resolution was somehow not quite what he was hoping for, although he never put words to the desire in him in the first place. He looks away to disguise the disappointment in his face, turns to exit to his own room to mope in peace.

With his head turned away he doesn't see Stein approach, doesn't realize the other boy has crossed the room until a hand touches his shoulder. Spirit jumps at the contact, reflexes pulling him back, and when his heart settles into its normal rhythm Stein is right in front of him, his eyes perfectly calm but ever-so-slightly amused.

"Stein." Spirit offers. He wants to cover his own startled motion with the illusion of calm but his voice comes out drenched in relief. He expects Stein to smirk, but the amusement fades instead of rising and the meister brings his hands up to cup Spirit's face.

Spirit goes entirely still. He knows what this is, what it must be, but Stein is just /looking/ at him, and doubt is circling confusion and rising hope in him while his brain notes the position of Stein's fingers, that the meister's thumb is pressed into Spirit's cheekbone and two of his fingers are resting against the sensitive skin behind Spirit's ear, and Spirit's eyes keep flickering between Stein's mouth and Stein's eyes and he can't decide which of the two will be a better tell.

As it turns out, he doesn't need a tell at all.

"Spirit, I'm going to kiss you," Stein announces as calmly as if he is telling his partner to transform. Spirit would expect that a warning would make it less thrilling, but exactly the opposite is true; his brain has just enough time to catch up with the auditory input and flood his system with adrenaline before Stein leans in to close the distance between them.

Stein's hands are /so warm/, Spirit's brain notes absently, and his mouth is pressing against Spirit's with the same careful control his fingers are exhibiting, and Spirit has no idea what his hands or mouth or body is doing but Stein isn't moving away, and Spirit can't quite remember how to breathe or if one even /does/ breathe while kissing and there /must/ be a way to do it but he doesn't know if he ever knew, and when Stein pulls back so slowly his lips cling to Spirit's the weapon has to open his eyes and blink twice before he can bring his lungs back into normal function.

Stein lets his hold on Spirit go as carefully as he separated their mouths, so Spirit has a brief moment when he's not sure if Stein is still touching him or if it is just residual heat from the meister's fingers. Then they are separate again and Stein's eyes are just as steady as they were, but the indoor-pale cast of his skin is very faintly pink, and that is as much of a victory as a grin would be from anyone else or as Spirit's stuttered breath is from him.

Stein reaches out and brushes his finger against the very end of Spirit's nose. Spirit draws back instinctively from the touch, but it pulls a smile out of him too without his deliberate decision. Stein reflects the smile back to him, an echo in intensity but an amplification in meaning, and turns to go back to his work.


End file.
